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Friday, May 24, 2013

Welcome to the Fabulous Hybrid Blog Carnival. Our topic this spring is Change! This post was written for inclusion in the quarterly Blog Carnival hosted by The Fabulous Mama Chronicles and Hybrid Rasta Mama. This month our participants reflect on change in all of its many forms. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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Growing up, I used to love novels about change. The kind where the lead character spends one life altering summer somewhere and comes back anew, or a group of kids trek through the mountains and find not only true friends, but their true self too.
I was all about change: new hair every three months, new clothes, new look... Obviously it was all about escaping, becoming something I am not.

Now, I have changed from when I was in my teens, quite a lot. Especially in the way that I do not pursue change anymore, quite on the contrary. I have learned to embrace myself for who I am. I do not need another hair color or clothes that are the latest fashion, or nail art or colored lenses. I am what I am. I am me. And I am not regretful about it.

Sure, there’s an occasional bout where I miss the girl I was, and I won’t vow that I’ll never dye my hair again (since I promised my daughter we’d try henna together shortly), but I don’t need it anymore. I have settled into my skin.

I think motherhood had a great deal to do with it, as it does show you the bigger picture of things, and one more easily foregoes superficial things. Probably my partner too, since he does love me unconditionally. But most importantly, I have changed. I have realized that I too can love myself unconditionally, even though it’s hard and quite contradictory to what I’ve been thought growing up. I can. I do.

Isn’t that one of the most important things we can model to our children? Unconditional self love. How radical is that!

That I’ve realized that I’m actually quite awesome a person doesn’t take away that I don’t notice my flaws. And I have a great many of them.
Change is still something I aspire to. I wish to change my anger into something more constructive, for one. I will try to work on myself, to become an even better person, an even better parent. But I accept that perfection doesn’t exist and that I am ME.

How about you? Where are you on the road to self love and self acceptance?

5 comments:

I can really relate to this post. I used to dye my hair regularly, have nice clothes, wear the best makeup, and do what I could to present myself in the best physical light. But for who? Not for me. Honestly, all that did was eat up time. Since motherhood sucks away “free time” I have learned to embrace plain, old me. Gray hairs abound. Makeup…what makeup? Nice clothes? Ha! I consider clean clothes to be a bonus. It is so important to model self love to our children, especially in a society where this is not the norm. I want my daughter to grow up loving who she is and not the idea of who she should be based on society’s ideas.

Thanks for the wonderful post and for participating in our first Carnival!

This was a beautiful post. It sounds like you have struck a wonderful balance and have learned the changes you want to make FOR YOU vs. the ones you felt compelled to make for others. That is a hard balance to strike, so well done. I think you are completely right on when you said that we should model self love to our children. Right on, sister.

Since becoming a mother I also find myself more accepting of my appearance as it is, and having a partner who recognizes the beauty in me no matter what state I am in is also encouraging. My son loves to lift my shirt and kiss my stretch-marked belly saying;"nice bedaine mommy!" or kisses the top of my less-than -perky boobs saying "good boobies mommy" which I find endearing. It has made me realise that there is more to me than just what I look like, that how I AM is more important and more noticeable than whether my skin is flawless or I ma sporting the most stylish clothing (as I am wearing pjs most of the time anyways!). And I like this new-found confidence I have that doesn't rely on how pretty I am on the outside.